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As Logan and Jack slowly approach, and Mom and Brandon’s expressions turn from horror into delight, while not one but two waitresses attend to my fallen chair and upended champagne glasses, while stunned diners look on and whisper between themselves at the crazy girl who seems to be having a nervous breakdown, and the chefs stop cutting, and the lights flicker and the world grinds to a halt on its tilted access, the penny, like the boulder at the beginning of Indiana Jones and The Raiders of The Lost Ark, drops through the roof. The two extra chairs, the sons we’re waiting for, the job at one of Brandon’s companies, it all makes horrible sense to me.
“Fox”, I say pathetically, finally remembering where I’d heard it before, my dreams popping instantaneously like a balloon thrown into a fire. Jack, Logan and Brandon Fox.
Please tell me this isn’t happening.
Chapter Twenty-One
I don’t know who looks more shocked: Logan, Jack or me, which is saying something, because I’m pretty traumatized right now. I have somehow fallen in love with the identical twin sons of the man my mother has been dating, as though the whole thing were some kind of poorly written eighties telenovela, albeit with straighter hair and a lot fewer shoulder pads.
Brandon even looks like the kind of cutout actor that might be perfect for the role, his good looks and comforting nature ideal for the little screen and the legions of fans that would inevitably adore him.
Telenovelas aside, I feel like fate has totally fucked me, this ironic sting in its tail part of the grand plan all along to destroy my dreams entirely and make me feel like an utter idiot for thinking what I thought we had might have actually been possible. I want to cry.
“I didn’t know you all knew each other already”, Mom says brightly, somehow unable to shift her jovial mood.
To add insult to injury, the empty chairs are alongside the one I’ve chosen, so Jack and Logan sit either side of me, an identical barrier between my mom and their dad.
“Nor me”, Brandon says. “Obviously I knew you’d have met Jack through the job, but Logan’s so hard to track down I thought we might have difficulty getting him to show up tonight.”
“I didn’t know Jack was your son”, I say pathetically.
“I didn’t know Dad was the one that passed your resume to Prometheus”, Jack is quick to point out.
Brandon holds his hands up as though being caught doing something he shouldn’t have. “I thought it would be better if I did it anonymously”, he says. “I just wanted you to feel like you were being judged on your own merits alone.”
“So you’ve been working together for a week”, Mom starts, “and you had no idea. That’s so funny.”
Funny is not the word I would choose to use.
“I hope you two are getting on okay”, Mom adds, “And Jack isn’t too hard of a boss.”
She doesn’t know the half of it. “She’s a wonderful employee”, Jack says. “An incredible artist and-”, he pauses briefly to consider what to say. “We’re very lucky to have her.”
Jack puts his hand on my knee and I’m so jumpy it jerks up uncontrollably and bangs loudly on the underneath of the table.
“Are you alright, Penny?” Brandon asks, when the glasses have finally stopped trembling.
“Sorry, I’m-, it’s nothing”, I say. “I guess I’m just surprised to see Jack and Logan here, that’s all. They were the last two people on earth I expected to see tonight.”
“So how do you two know each other then?” Mom says, her index finger moving between Logan and I.
Logan looks at me and then over to Mom. We fell in love over a buried skull, we share the same appreciation for three way relationships, we met each other in a skanky bar when Logan dazzled me with his Godlike appearance.
“I went to see Jack at the beginning of the week”, Logan says instead, “I think it was Penny’s first day.”
He stops short of saying we’ve been inseparable ever since.
“What are the chances, hey?” Mom says, doing the rounds again with the champagne bottle. “First I meet your dad, and then Penny meets both of you, completely independently of our relationship together.”
The word relationship makes me feel uncomfortable, and Logan’s leg pressed against mine doesn’t help either. Out of all of the millions of other dads in this world, why the hell do Logan and Jack have to have the one that happens to be dating my mom? Where is the justice in that? The first time in my life I feel like something is going my way, and things just have to complicate themselves unnecessarily. Having a relationship with two people at once is hard enough, having your mom date their father as well is needlessly headache inducing.
It’s not impossible, at least that’s true, but it isn’t exactly conventional either.
“So”, Jack begins. “Are you going to tell us why you’ve brought us all here?”
Mom and Brandon share a conspiratorial look. They’ve adopted a cat, bought a yacht, decided to go on holiday together.
“You tell them”, Mom says.
“Do it together”, Brandon insists, like a schoolboy about to confess a prank to his friends.
It’s a cat, please for christ's sake be a cat.
Brandon takes Mom’s hand in his. “I know Katie and I have only known each other for a relatively short amount of time”, he begins. “But in that time, we both feel like we’ve met the person we should have met a long time ago.”
“It’s nothing really”, Mom says, “But we just wanted to let you all know, all together as a family, that Brandon and I-”, she pauses dramatically.
“Are adopting a cat?” I can’t help but ask.
“No, silly”, Mom says, pausing again and making a point of waving her left hand at me.
Oh, fuck it can’t be. Oh, fucking, fuckity, fuck it can’t be anything else.
It’s been there all along and I haven’t seen it, a rock the size of Gibraltar. I can feel the color draining from my face like champagne spilling out of an upturned glass, my yelp of distress nothing but a dry croak in my throat, my heart suddenly a lump of muscle that refuses to continue beating.
“We’re getting married”, Mom says excitedly, and for the second time tonight, my chair hits the floor, this time with me still in it.
Chapter Twenty-Two
If I stay in here, I can pretend the world outside doesn’t exist. Mom and Brandon won’t get married, and Jack and Logan won’t become my - I can’t even say it.
“Come on, Penny”, Mom says, through the bolt locked cubicle door. “Nothing’s going to change.”
Everything is going to change. Logan, Jack, my fantasy and me, how the hell is that going to continue? We were already pushing the borders of morality before tonight, right now we’re skimming the edge of illegality.
“Just give me a minute, Mom”, I say, as if passing out at the table, and then immediately rushing to the restroom upon coming to wasn’t enough already to deserve a moment alone.
“Everyone’s waiting”, Mom says insistently. “We can’t begin the celebrations without you. And then after the briefest of pauses, “Is this because of Dad?”
“Please, Mom, I’ll be out in a mi
nute, I just need to catch my breath, that’s all. It’s a shock”, I say. “I’m in shock.”
“If you’re not out of there in two minutes I’m coming back in”, Mom declares.
“Mom, I’m twenty five years old, please, just give me a few minutes to gather myself together. You’ve just told me you’re getting married.”
“Two minutes”, Mom says again, ignoring completely what I’ve just said. “I’ll wait until you’re back to open the expensive champagne.”
Spending the rest of my life in a restroom cubicle as well maintained as it is, doesn’t seem like a very feasible long term plan. It would make what remains of my relationship with Jack and Logan kinky but tiresome after a while. I should face this like an independent woman, but all I want to die is cry foul and curse fate like the malevolent God I always knew it to be. The one shining morsel of hope in this grade nine shitstorm is that Jack and Logan had no idea about this either. I was the one that fainted, but by Logan’s ashen face and Jack’s trembling hands it was clear that neither one of us saw this coming. The problem all three of us face now, is how the fuck we are going to solve it.
“There she is”, Mom says, rising from the table to meet me.
I feel weak, like I’ve just come out of a chemotherapy session, a mere shadow of my former self.
“Are you feeling alright?” Jack asks.
“You hit the floor pretty hard”, Logan adds.
“I’m okay”, I lie. “I guess just a little shocked.”
